Avoid Job Hopping 12

[ptb5021]

Hi all,

New to the forums, so forgive me if this has been discussed. I saw a few threads about this general topic, but still wanted to start my own.

I graduated May 2013 with my MS MechE degree. I've had two jobs since graduating: DoD-related position, which I left after ~9 months because I felt that there was too much Project Management involved and too little technical work. Next job, which I've been at for ~5 months, is involved in warehousing/robotics. Here too, I am finding that there is too much Project Management involved and too little technical work.

Both industries - DoD & Robotics I find to be interesting, but have been looking for more technical/research work as opposed to simply managing projects. I understand that new-hires will get stuck with mundane tasks, but looking at some of the more senior engineers, they certainly aren't doing more technical work either.

Being out of school for only a year, and getting ready to look for a new position, how do I avoid job hopping? I am confident that I can defend my position in seeking new opportunities, but don't want to fall into a third job that isn't challenging. I was significantly more prepared during the interviewing process for the position which I am currently in, and felt that I asked very specific questions relative to mechanical design. However, expectations from interview have not panned out and are not in the foreseeable future.

Advice from anybody who has been through this before?

 

[moltenmetal]

Once you've got ten years under your belt, and a fully developed specialty and a book of contacts in the industry, you can job-hop to your heart's content. Better still, you can be an independent contractor or consultant. But that's not an option open to you a couple years post graduation.

People that are easily bored are seldom good hires. As I tell my kids, boredom shows a lack of creativity or initiative or both. If you have those virtues, put them to use where you are, and do it now, or you are unlikely to solve the root cause of your problem. While it's true that there are some jobs which are truly dead-end, you'll be surprised how few such jobs there really are.

 

[europipe]

MM, You are not my favorite Philosopher .
Boredom is something different then self-development.

 

[weldstan]

When you're young is the time to take a number of jobs. For added experience. For better pay. I started my fifth job after 10 years. Each position offered different experiences, in different industries, from basic steel making, to EPC work, to the Space Shuttle, to utilities and back to EPC work. All with increasing responsibility, authority and pay.

 

[oldestguy]

In reviewing the posts by others, examine their experience record if you can. I'd opt for the advice from the older experienced persons. There are some eager posters that may seem to be useful, but beware. Jumping too quick is more likely to be unhelpful than waiting.

 

[bcd]

Hi,

I read through all the posts and there are some with very good advice. Your job is to help your company succeed. To make money. There are very few companies that require their Engineers to do nothing but "technical work". Engineers are paid to make decisions....period. Decisions that normally require technical knowledge and experience as well as commercial knowledge. Do not overlook the commercial side of the business. If you believe you can be successful in your career only focusing on technical, you are wrong. If they are paying you to be a project manager, then be the best project manager they have. Use any free time you have to study and understand the technical background and how things work....which will help you make better, more informed decisions on future projects.

So far you are 0 for 2 in finding "technical work". You may find you have better luck back at a University, but even then, the commercial side is always there because even Universities need to make money.

 

[moltenmetal]

Weldstan, I understand your motivations for switching jobs and I'm sure it was the right decision from your perspective. Glad that you're in charge of your career and not afraid to jump ship when you find something better- some people stick with stuff they're utterly unsuited to for a decade and end up miserable, underpaid and a detriment to their employer to boot. But I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't hire you- in fact I probably wouldn't even interview you. I don't care if you changed jobs five times in ten years for personal development or because you got bored or wanted more money. I'm sure I'd miss out on a great performer and tremendous contributor for the two years you spent working for me, but if a great performer left after only two years I'd still consider that to be a loss for the company and a bad hiring decision on my part, and my management would agree with me.

Europipe, my only point was that your way of living, which works great for you and no doubt earns you a lot more money and is way more fun than being a staff engineer somewhere, isn't really open to the OP who is only a few years from graduation. At some point you need to show your ability to commit or in a very real sense, many opportunities are going to be lost to you.

My two cents, but really worth no more than what the OP paid for them.

 

[europipe]

MM, everybody his own life,
love to support when a company needs me.
Don't like it when there is nothing to do and You have to sit and watch.
Saw poeple in misery when after 25 years they were fired, glad I'm flexible to switch.
Was asked by a company 3 times to return, and now they want me for the 4th time.
So maybe You don't want to interview people like me,
and I'm sure I don't want to work for people that have that shortsighted opinions.

 

[weldstan]

moltenmetal,
As time went by, I spent much more time with my employers. Will retire next year with 19+ years service with my current employer. I spent nearly 3 years with each employer except for one, which I left after 6 mos.

 

[IRstuff]

"I'm sure I don't want to work for people that have that shortsighted opinions."

Is not a question of shortsightedness, it's simply statistics. For every one of you, there are dozens of "them." BTDT, given a choice of interviewing someone with 5 jobs in 10 yrs or someone with 2 jobs in 10 yrs, the latter wins, EVERY TIME, unless you're in an industry where the product cycle is less than 1 year. Otherwise, the job-hopper has zero experience in the other 5 years of my product's cycle.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529

 

[bigTomHanks]

When I am not being fulfilled technically at work I always have a project going on at home. The key here is to spend as little time at work when you are not being fulfilled so you can do what you enjoy, thus not getting burned out. Many times when I am dissatisfied I think about my project at home and then come to the conclusion that I wouldn't want to disrupt my income in the middle of what I am doing. Go buy yourself a welder, chop saw, and a 4" grinder. You will be amazed at the projects you will be able to do with just those tools.

 

[spongebob007]

"You are job-hopping. You need to stop job-hopping or you will be labelled as someone who won't stay because they bore easily- nobody wants to hire and sink training resources into people who won't stay. You need to follow the advice given here and find something to apply your technical skills to. It's possible that there isn't such an opportunity in your current job, but frankly it's unlikely. Use your imagination, find the problems and solve them. But make sure you do the work you're assigned as well."

I could not disagree more. This is not the 1950's where someone gets out of school and goes to work for the same company for their entire career. I was reading an article the other day, and if I recall correctly it said that the average time at one company today is three years. Look, I have been doing this for 20 years. In that time I have worked for six different employers. My last two companies have taken up 16 years of my career, and I stayed at my first job out of school for two years-do the math. While true, some hiring managers may have looked at my resume and said "job hopper" before filing it in the round file, hopping jobs-some I held for under a year, hasn't stopped me from being continuosly employed as an engineer since 1994. In fact, I advise young engineers to change jobs every few years when you are still young. How do you know what you REALLY want to be when you grow up if you don't try different things? In my first four years out of school I worked in two defense jobs at very large companies, I worked in an R&D lab in the auto industry, and also at a small privately owned aerospace company. The varied experiences of my youth provided a solid, broad-based foundation for what I do today. Also, changing jobs and industries when you are young will give you a flavor for different corporate cultures and different industries. A 1000 employee company where you are one of 300 engineers is different than a small company with few (or only one) engineers, is different than a 300 employee company with an engineering department of 50 people. Defense (and other highly regulated industries) are different than consumer products. When interviewing candidates, I don't hold it against someone if they had a few one year or less jobs when just starting out. Now if you have a 25 year resume absolutely filled with one year jobs then you might have a problem being labeled as a job hopper.

As far as the work you are doing being non-technical. I have some bad news for you: Most engineering jobs aren't very technical. I have spent a good part of my career doing R&D work and also a good part doing structural engineering. Even though the work by and large is mostly technical, there is still quite a bit of administrative work that is utterly boring. Sure you could follow the advice of others offered here and go that extra mile or do technical stuff in your personal time. I do encourage you to think outside the box, but ultimately you can either wait and hope for your current job to become what you want or you can go out and find a job that is more along the lines of what you want to do. I got where I am by going after the types of jobs that were more aligned with my interests, and quickly dumped those that weren't.

 

[kaconnol]

One thing they don't tell you in school is how little technical work you will do on a daily basis (obviously depends on your field). I'm on the extreme end having experience in commercial nuclear and DOE work, but I'd say 90% of my work in non-technical. There are lots of forms to fill out, t's to cross and i's to dot.

Like others on here, I find hobbies at home when I have a "technical" itch.

Kevin Connolly, PE

http://www.TheEngineeringSurvivalGuide.com

 

[MedicineEng]

ptb5021:
the way to avoid job-hoping is... not change jobs.

Albeit I understand your position, and I am sure that if you changed jobs again you could eventually have a reason for each and every change you have to remember one very important point: For you to give a chance to explain yourself you have to land in an interview. and for taht the persons that is interviewing you has to go through your CV.

In my current and past jobs, I have/had responsibilities of choosing team members and I can say that if I see a CV of a recent graduate with 3 jobs in a year, this would go immediately to the bin, so no matter the reason you wouldn´t be given the opportunity to explain it. From my experience. I am sure that most of the decision makers think like this.

All the other advice that you received in this forum are important and you should follow it.

Best of lucks with your life and welcome to the engineering community.

 

[squeeky]

Management is Safety, budget control, labour relations, Hiring and firing, Disaplinary enquiries, production meetings, budget meetings and project meetings. I moved to the technical support side of our company and I deal with technical problems but.... you have to be very precise and there are comebacks if you are wrong.

I moved around a lot when I first started it didn't really do me any good. Get at least 3 years under your belt. The if you move for for advancement, there should not be a problem as you will rely on your experience. JUmping around early may not give you the experieince you need. If you do decide to move, list the pros and cons and realise that you will ahve to stick it out. The job is actually waht you make it. YOu have to manage down, left and right and also up. You have to manage your boss so you get the opportunitites that you desire. Make it happen.

 

[racookpe1978]

OK - Let me ask another question:

1. Why do want to do "technical" work rather than be in a higher dollar/more fiscally responsible management position? Do you think engineering is number calc's or CAD designer 3d programing of robot arms, and not "getting robots to do what the customer wants them to do"?

2. What do you think "technical work" is? Why do you want to limit yourself to whatever you think "technical work" is?

 

[SomptingGuy]

Two interesting questions racookpe1978.

I asked them of myself in my final year at university, when my house-mates were taking their engineering degrees into law and finance careers.

Then I asked it again after a few years in one job, where I was starting to get frustrated that my rôle was shifting from "doing interesting stuff" to "repeating the stuff that had been interesting" to "superivising new grads doing stuff that was once interesting to me" to "writing proposals for work that I might supervise if it came in".

So I jumped. No more project management. No empire-building. No Ferrari.

- Steve

 

[ptb5021]

@racookpe1978

1. Why do want to do "technical" work rather than be in a higher dollar/more fiscally responsible management position? Do you think engineering is number calc's or CAD designer 3d programing of robot arms, and not "getting robots to do what the customer wants them to do"?
"Technical" work is the fun part. Doing 3D CAD design, prototyping, calculations, etc, is what makes engineering fun. Those are the reasons I studied engineering in the first place, and the reasons I got an MS engineering degree as opposed to an MBA.

Managing the project where all of the true engineering work beyond conceptualization is outsourced? I don't consider this to be true engineering. Some of you may, but I'm just speaking in terms of my career aspirations. Sure, conceptualization of a new project is great, but the rest of the time your really just checking in to make sure the 3rd party is on schedule/meeting budget. I realize that everyone has a different definition of management.


2. What do you think "technical work" is? Why do you want to limit yourself to whatever you think "technical work" is?
Let me answer your question with a question of my own. Why do you consider that "limiting"?

Everyone leads a different career. Generally speaking, engineers follow a 'management track' or a 'technical expertise track'. Some people may flip flop tracks part-way through their career... but generally speaking, there are two primary ways in the corporate ladder. My preference is to follow the 'technical expertise track'. That's not for everybody, but that is my preference.

 

[desertfox]

Hi ptb5021

I agree with your 1. above, I've no real interest in anything but doing design and calculations in a career spanning 40+ years.
I would add from personnel experience that the best Project Managers I've worked with have usually come through the design/drawing office and generally those that haven't don't seem to have a clue.

To quote an example:- I was asked at short notice to go to site and act as a Mechanical Supervisor in putting some equipment together, I agreed but stated has I hadn't had anything to do with the project I would need sometime to look through the drawings and project reviews, I was gob smacked the PM said I couldn't because there were no hours left.
Until I pointed out that, "what would I do when asked a question by the client during a very tight shutdown schedule? tell the client I'll get back to him in an hour or so when I'm familiar with this aspect of the job", needless to say common sense eventually prevailed.

 

[ptb5021]

Good example. To your point that the PMs who don't come out from a technical background don't have a clue - I couldn't agree more. I don't want to be that.